A little about myself, and how I got started in the radio repair business.

 

Hello, I'm Glenn Anderson I have had an interest in electronics since high school. As a teenager I converted my parent's attic into the "M" room. Which stood for monster because I didn't want my little brother to go into it. So I told him a monster lived there. I built a power supply and did radio 'experiments'. I bent the fins of our tube radio out so it picked up noises like shortwave. Sometimes I would blow a fuse and my mother would yell upstairs at me to fix the fuse. It was an ideal childhood, watching Twilight Zone and playing with electronics. In a high school speech I explained the Super Heterodyne radio and drew the schematic on the board. I got an 'A' and knew from then on electronics was for me.

 

Later I went into the Army where I was a radio repairman stationed on a remote island on the Aleutian chain called Shemya. We monitored ICBMs and Russian space flights. When I came home I earned a degree in electronics from Green River College and started a career as an electronic technician.

 

I have worked for many companies over the years: Data I/O, Physio Control, Advanced Technology Laboratories, Medtronics and others. I got my BSCS from Western Washington University at fifty years old and continued in the medical electronics industry. At the end of my career I became a teacher in electronics at ITT and also taught robotics to high school kids at Sno-Isle Technical School and Bellevue Community College

 

After I retired I decided to start repairing and re-selling antique radios. My wife Jan has extensive experience refinishing furniture that we've had over the years. She is in charge of the cabinets and I'm in charge of the chassis. Working on radios was like coming home to my first love. I like the feeling of another era that I partly shared in. The classic style of the golden era radios evoke a kinder gentler time in my mind.

 

I was buying parts one day and told the girl behind the counter I was adding Blue-tooth to an antique radio. She said “Oh, you're making the radio 'steam-punk'!” She explained to me that term came from the Will Smith move The Wild, Wild West where everything was modern but powered by steam. I got a laugh out of that.

 

I listen to all of the music I enjoy on classic radios, not just the AM dial, which most of these radios are limited to (as well as shortwave). I've added a transmitter device that allows all the radios in the house to tune into the music you put on it. We can also add functionality to your radio with and external input jack that you can plug your mobile device into, or we can make it Blue-tooth compatible. All of this is of course for an extra fee. We like to keep it classic looking so all additions will be discreet. We love working on radios and do our best to make them like new. We want to bring out the radios' natural beauty and personality.

 

Please feel free to leave us comments, suggestions or questions on our Contact page

 

Anderson Classic Radios

Glenn and Jan Anderson